


Ta' for the stollen

by LaurelSilver



Series: Winter Wonderland [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/M, Human AU, Swearing, death mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 18:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5550626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaurelSilver/pseuds/LaurelSilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[From the Winter angst with a happy ending prompts] The character can't afford to pay for their utilities at the moment, and they're worried they may end up with no heat in winter, but their landlord/landlady is sympathetic and even invites them for a dinner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ta' for the stollen

**Author's Note:**

> Sean 'North Ireland' O'Murdach [aged 23]  
> Alice 'England' Beilschmidt[aged 95]  
> Ludwig 'Germany' Beilschmidt [died aged 63, should be 97]  
> Gilbert 'Prussia' Beilschmidt [aged 99]
> 
> Warnings; death mentions, refers to the Berlin Wall, casual swearing

_Christmas Eve_

Sean trudges down the stairs, a small roll of notes clenched in his pale fist. He's a skinny man, though it's hard to tell under the four thick jumpers layered in an attempt to keep warm. Almost-orange-ginger hair is hidden under the wooly hat forced down over his ears. His scarf is fairly loose, his bottom jumper being a turtle neck. The scarf is just there for moral support. Or something.

Sean knocks loudly on the landlady's door, stepping back and bouncing on his toes. Since moving to London, he's been struggling to hold down a job for more than a month. His recent job 'ran out' - he was a Christmas Elf in a twenty-four hour Tesco, and as it's already Christmas Eve he's no longer needed. Here's your paycheck, now fuck off you Irish twat.

And the paycheck is menial, just scraping minimum wage. Lot London-centric living wage, just minimum wage. All this money-balancing makes Sean wish he'd paid better attention in maths. But no matter good at maths he could be, he's still having to make major sacrifices. Like his heating.

His 'elf-wage' covers his basic rent, with fifty quid to spare. Fifty quid isn't going to cover electricity and gas bills over the winter. In these low temperatures, it possibly won't even last him a week.

The landlady's door opens, the little old lady scowling up at him. "Cutting it close, _again_."

"I only got paid an hour ago," Sean mumbles, "Just take the bloody money."

The landlady thumbs through the money. Heat wafts from behind her, and the smell of something sweet fills the air around Sean, teasing him as he can almost taste the sticky deliciousness, mouth watering.

"Where's your utilities?" she asks briskly.

"I've switched them all off," Sean says.

"The fuck have you done that for?"

Sean double-takes. As much as he's used to bad language, hearing it from a little ninety-odd lady in a pastel periwinkle pinafore and rollers in her hair is just something else. "I can't afford it. I've only got fifty pound to my name and no job."

The landlady looks him up and down, and sighs. "Get yourself in, you'll catch your death of cold with no heating."

Sean blinks dumbly as she stands back, holding the door open for him. He steps inside, the warm surrounding him completely.

"Take off your shoes. I'm afraid you'll have to sleep on the settee. I would, but my artheritis keeps giving me gip and I'm not suffering through that for someone who can barely pay their rent on time," the landlady says sharply.

"No! No, shit, ta' for letting me stay," Sean says, pulling his hat and scarf off.

"Yes, yes, do you want a cup of tea?"

"Yes please, thank you."

Sean peels his jumpers off, one by one, until he's left in just his elf Tesco shirt. They'd let him keep it as a souvenir. Isn't that nice of them.

He sits down, the landlady pouring tea from a fat teapot into a couple of mugs. "Milk, sugar?"

"Just a bit of milk please, thank you."

Tea made, the pair sit quietly, drinking. The flat is typically old-lady-cosy; plates sat in hooks on the walls, the furniture covered in crocheted throws, wallpaper and curtains covered in flowers. The news, Look South, drawls on the television.

"What are you cooking?" Sean asks politely.

The landlady's eyes widen, and she whips her head around, scanning the kitchenette. She lets out a sigh of relief as she turns back around. "Don't scare me like that - I thought I'd left something burning! There's a stollen in the oven."

"Stollen?"

"Yes. Stollen. That's what I said."

"It's just…" Sean stammers, "Most people make pudding, not stollen."

"You don't make pudding on Christmas Eve!" the landlady shrieks, "Are you mad?!"

"No, I'm Irish," Sean answers dumbly.

The landlady stares at him for several seconds before she cracks up, laughing hard in the back of her throat. Sean drinks his tea nervously as she calms down.

"You're a complete idiot, flat twenty two," she says.

"Sean," Sean introduces, "Sean O'Murdach."

"Alice Beilschmidt," the landlady says.

German baking and a Germanic surname? "You don't sound German," Sean says stupidly.

"No. My husband was," Alice says, nodding to a photograph on the wall.

The photograph is old, depicting her and her German husband. Alice's hair is longer, tied up in pigtails and her face is less wrinkled, but her glasses still perch on her nose. Her husband is tall and broad, hair slicked back and eyes piercing even in a black-and-white photograph. The pair are dressed up warm, the scenery behind them pale and snowy.

"Where is your husband?" Sean asks.

"Six feet under Berlin."

"Oh. Oh, shit, sorry, I should have realised."

"Don't worry. It was a good thirty years ago now," Alice sighs.

Sean frowns. "He can't have been very old."

"No, he wasn't. Road accident, the fax said. He was in Berlin, trying to visit his brother. They'd been separated by the Wall, and Ludwig moved to London for a new life. Lost contact with his brother. I tried to track the brother down when the Wall fell for some closure, but no joy."

Sean plays with his mug, the pottery still warm. Alice sighs.

"It's no good dwelling on the past, though. Besides, I can't be getting into long spiels - Doctor Who's on in five minutes."

Sean's ears prick. "Doctor Who?"

"Of course. It's a British tradition as strong as the Queen's speech, I tell you. I've only missed one episode back in nineteen sixty nine because I was in hospital popping my son out my bits."

Sean grimaces at her bluntness. Alice gets up, bustling around the kitchenette. She pulls the stollen out of the oven, leaving it on the stovetop to cool.

"Come along then, national schedules wait for no one!" Alice natters, half-dragging Sean over to the settee, facing the television which sits in an alcove in the corner. Just above the television in a shelf, seemingly organised into a shrine to Ludwig, with a few pictures of him, a cuckoo clock stopped on the time ten past nine, and a creepy, crudely-made wooden doll with white hair and red eyes.

Sean curls up on the settee, sipping his tea as the sixty second news starts, the presenter wearing a scarf of tinsel and reindeer antlers. Alice sits herself down, pulling one of the throws around her shoulders.

"Come to think of, when's the last time you ate?" she titters.

"I had a bowl of cereal for breakfast," Sean says. And now his fridge is switched off, so his milk will go bad. Great.

"No wonder you're so friggin' skinny! Stay right there!" she gets back up, sprightly in her old age.

"But Doctor Who-"

"Can wait! Unfortunately even Capaldi's too young for me! And married."

Sean snorts with laughter.

Alice cuts a thick slice of stollen, pouring cream over it before passing it to Sean and cutting herself a smaller slice.

"Ta'," Sean thanks her, digging in. The dense dessert is sweet with a warm spiciness to the aftertaste, the marzipan barely an almondy ripple through the heavy pastry.

Alice settles back down, the channel moving on to advertisements of Christmas specials, ironically starting with an advertisement for Doctor Who.

"Miss Alice?" Sean pips up.

" _Miss_ Alice, huh?"

"Mrs Alice, even. Why are you on your own on Christmas?"

"Why are _you_ on your own at Christmas?"

"Fair play. Mrs Alice?"

Alice chuckles. "Yes?"

"Was that your husband's doll?" he points to the creepy wooden thing sitting in the shrine, "Because it doesn't look very cuddly."

"His brother made it. It's modelled after his brother. Albino, apparently."

"That's actually pretty alright, isn't it. Mrs Alice?"

"Nosy sod aren't you?"

"Why haven't you retired yet?"

"Do you think being a landlady has a solid retirement plan? No. It's a load of shit."

"Huh. I'll be sure not to become a landlady."

"Good plan."

"Mrs Alice?"

"Shut up, Capaldi's on!"

And hundreds of miles away, in a Berlin care-home, a man sits in the corner eating a supper of stollen and gluehwein, accompanied only by a doll he'd made decades before of his brother, Ludwig.

**Author's Note:**

> Tesco; a cheap shop open most of the time. A British Walmart. Sort of. I think.  
> Living wage in London is higher than anywhere else in the country, because it's the capital (or something, idk I'm not an economist). Minimum wage is supposed to be higher in London, but isn't legally enforced as far as I understand.  
> Sean being in flat 22; the Anglo-Irish treaty (essentially when North Ireland was first 'created' though it took a while and there are still issues now) was signed in 1922  
> Child being born Christmas 1969; this doesn't refer to any nation in particular. But it's 69 because I'm immature  
> Dolls; Germany and France are the main nations who produced and commercialised dolls. Also plays on the German woodcarvers stereotypes. I also read somewhere about dolls being made to children's likeness, but I couldn't find anything about it so don't quote me on it.
> 
> I own nothing. Please don't sue me I have no money and you will achieve nothing. I'm a delicate flower, leave me alone in my financial instability.


End file.
